My First Snake

At twelve years of age I was wrenched from my parents grasp with the necessity of Boarding school. Like all Boarding schools of its time the new intakes were at the bottom of the food chain and mine was steeped in the age old tradition of scivying for the senior year. By sheer destiny I ended up being scivy for a prefect who was also a nature lover and it was not long before I noticed that he collected birds eggs. Being a nature lover I was not interested in depriving the Mommy birds of their eggs but did look up to him for having an interest in nature. He too was reasonably protective of me but despite this I had the misfortune of being both the smallest boy in the dormitory and the smallest boy in the school and as such underwent severe bullying. Not a week went by without me being given manual punishments for various misdemeanors most of which were of other peoples doing. Along with this I hardly ever saw the treats that my parents had lovingly placed in my trunk as this was raided during the night after my infrequent trips home.
I found that, more and more, i had to get away for a while and begun to do 'bunk outs' where i climbed out of the burglar barred windows, over the six foot security fence and disappeared into the bush area surrounding the school. I would spend hours walking through the thick elephant grass down to the forest area and through to a gully which filled with rain water during the rainy season. This became such an escape that i often would register for lunch, gulp it down and then disappear from afternoon school only to reappear at evening registration. It was in my third term that i found out that my prefect also had an interest in snakes and had two little snakes which were being kept in the science classroom in an old fish tank. This was the moment of enlightenment !!! How about that ... SNAKES AS PETS ?? I wanted one !!
Brimming with excitement I gulped my lunch, and made a hasty escape to the bush. I entered the back section towards the thorn trees but to my dismay walked straight into my Prefect. Then it dawned on me - he had a cigarette in his hand and was as shocked at seeing me. He said he was out looking for eggs from the weavers nest and asked me not to tell anyone. I was in no position to do anything but comply. He then said he needed me to stay below the tree so that i could act as lookout whilst he collected the eggs. I said OK and crouched down next to the tree. There was a short length of metal fence post lying next to me and i picked it up and to my delight a tiny brown house snake was nestled under it. I grabbed a stick and pinned it down - as I had seen Dad do with a much larger specimen and received a gale of laughter from the tree. My Prefect jumped down and laughingly mocked my caution, identified it and showed me how to hold the little creature. I was awestruck with it and asked him 20 questions covering what it eats to who knows what else could have flashed through my mind. Overnight i became a cheerful chappy - after all i had just entered the world as a pet owner and oh boy there was never another kid that had a pet like mine. I was very aware that the snakes presence should not be made public and begged my prefect to let me keep it in the dorm and he kindly agreed with the unspoken knowledge that i too would keep other things private. The house snake stayed with me for most of the term - literally. I kept him in a little wooden pencil case that i had made which fortunately had very ill fitting joints allowing plenty of air. Under my Prefects tutoring i ensured that he was handled infrequently and watered daily. I also spent long hours hunting geckos for him once a week which he ate with great gusto. He was bestowed with the completely unoriginal name of 'Housey' and heard all my gripes and moans. Housey was discovered at around one o'clock in the morning after a home weekend accompanied by a large shriek which brought the dormitory to life. So he was banished to the lab which was not good for him but for me resulted in an interval where my treats were untouched and the physical bullying was replaced by retoric to which I found more amusement than any thing else. Housey was replaced at the earliest available opportunity.